City needs twenty-five more emergency rooms

While the city has 21 rooms to provide emergency accommodation for people who need it, a further 25 are needed.

It may seem strange that there are people who need such accommodation here, bearing in mind the city only recently announced it had been able to record a CHF 36.3 million surplus for the year 2018. While such people may not be immediately apparent, they are there.

As mentioned, for people who are in need of emergency accommodation, there are 21 such rooms, though these are often occupied; indeed, none is currently free, hence a further 25 are needed. It is as a result of the redevelopment of the properties at numbers 3 and 5 Kirchenstrasse that rooms there are no longer available.

As a short-term solution, it is planned to use 27 rooms in the former Cantonal Hospital on Artherstrasse (photograph), where there are already ten such rooms. While the owner of the site is the canton, it is currently let out to the city. As many of the rooms already have appropriate facilities, only two new showers and a number of new washbasins are needed, as are a few minor alterations to the kitchen relating to fire safety.

Nine emergency rooms have previously been available at number 9 Zeughausgasse, too, but the people using these are to be re-housed elsewhere as the city is now no longer the tenant at these Corporation-owned premises. Of note, too, is that the city has eight emergency flats and four rooms for women only at other premises in the city.

In a more long-term plan to house people in difficulty, new premises in the Göbli area with up to thirty rooms of basic standards are planned to be built on land previously owned by the Corporation but now owned by the city, this at a cost of CHF 440,000.

This article is based on one by Laura Sibold.